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Impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on Employment Cost Index data for June 2021

This page provides further information on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for the June 2021 Employment Cost Index news release.

Collection mode

The ECI data are collected by BLS field economists contacting establishment respondents. Respondents may provide information through personal visits, phone, email, electronic file transmission, fax, and mail. Field economists have discontinued personal visits and are relying on the other collection methods at this time.

Response rates

Nonresponse may increase because of difficulty reaching survey respondents or selected jobs having no workers for the reference period. See the historical response rates. Response rates were comparable in June 2021 to the March 2021 release.

Table 1. Response rates for usable data eligible for collection
Compensation component Dec 2019 Mar 2020 Jun 2020 Sep 2020 Dec 2020 Mar 2021 Jun 2021

Wages and salaries

 86.0% 79.5% 80.0% 81.2% 81.3% 82.4% 81.8%

Benefits

 95.3% 95.9% 95.8% 95.3% 95.6% 96.1% 95.0%

Measures of reliability

BLS publishes measures of reliability along with not seasonally adjusted 3-month and 12-month percent changes. See Technical Information about Standard Errors for Employment Cost Index Estimates and the database query tools. The percentage of standard errors (3-month percent change) less than or equal to 0.3 are shown below.

Table 2. Percentage of standard errors (3-month percent change) less than or equal to 0.3
Compensation component Dec 2019 Mar 2020 Jun 2020 Sep 2020 Dec 2020 Mar 2021 Jun 2021

Total compensation

 99.2% 89.4% 84.8% 96.2% 96.2% 89.4% 88.6%

Wages and salaries

 97.7% 87.1% 79.5% 91.7% 93.9% 84.1% 84.1%

Benefits

 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 92.9% 100.0%

Last Modified Date: July 30, 2021